Back in the day......

[meanmaryjean]

I was regaling a new grad the other night as to how things have changed in the 35+ years since I became a nurse.

She was appalled to hear that:

Gloves were for surgery. Only. Yes, we cleaned up messes and changed dressings/ started IVs with our bare hands

The only 'treatment' for hypoplastic left heart was to place the baby in the mother's arms.

We mixed our own TPN.

Benadryl and ibuprofen were only available with a prescription.

PLEASE share you 'back in the day' stories!

[amoLucia]

I had the pleasure of meeting an elderly retired nurse in the late '90s. She was in her late 90s at the time. She told of buying 3 brand new uniforms for her new job, and being promptly reprimanded because her ankles showed! She was forced to let out the hem, and then put false hems on, to cover her scandalous ankles!

Sounds like my Catholic high school in the late 1960's. Our skirt hems had to reach the floor when we knelt. Or else we were sent to the Home Ec room to practice our sewing skills!!!

[monkeybug]

Sounds like my Catholic high school in the late 1960's. Our skirt hems had to reach the floor when we knelt. Or else we were sent to the Home Ec room to practice our sewing skills!!!

When I think of the issues that were happening with the youngest nurses just before I left the hospital--visible thongs (whale's tails above scrub pants) and their proclivity to wear very tight baby doll t shirts without a jacket--I'm amazed at how far society has fallen.

[KCMnurse, BSN, MSN, RN]

To KCMnurse - Thank you, but never heard of hemineverin. Just looked it up. This ancient one learned a new drug today - learning never stops!

To all you newbies out there - See! We all keep on learning, too. So don't feel discouraged when you think 'how will you ever learn it all'. Thing is, you never do, which is a healthy thing. Just as long as you keep on looking for the answers!!!

All I know is that stuff seeped out of the patients pores and stunk to high heaven. Smelt so bad you could taste it. Patients on it nearly always got a private room.

[DoGoodThenGo]

All I know is that stuff seeped out of the patients pores and stunk to high heaven. Smelt so bad you could taste it. Patients on it nearly always got a private room.

Ok, now ya'll got me interested so had to look this stuff up, and all one can say is "Yikes". Apparently Keith Moon died from an overdose of hemineverin: Heminevrin (clomethiazole)

[KCMnurse, BSN, MSN, RN]

And then there was this nurse that used it to commit murder:

Alison Firth - murder - 2001 - Alison Firth

[DalekRN]

Bump... Keep the stories coming!

[Hancock330]

Where I worked, way back when, even though there was more than one set of keys, the rule was that if the keys were gone for a full shift the narc cabinet would have to have the locks replaced (because, I think, the keys might have been copied and the copies sold to drug dealers or whatever), and the nurse who took the keys home would have to pay for that -- and that was a very expensive proposition. That was the reason we always got dressed again and made the trek back to the hospital before getting some well earned rest.

[amoLucia]

Time was when you AND a coworker or 2 could actually leave the facility to go out for lunch at a deli across the street.

There were also the times when not only did we count narcs, but we had to count syringes too. Some places probably still do.

Anybody from Catholic facilities remember when everything stopped for prayers over the intercom. To this day I can recite The Angelus

which came on at 12noon sharp everyday. NOTHING interrupted prayers.

And on Christmas Eve at 12 midnite sharp, we had a baby Jesus that a nurse had to place in the manager that each floor had.

Not sure if anyone commented on this, but remember mercurochrome mixed with Maalox (MOM?) was applied to wounds with heat lamps for wound care?

Sippy I and Sippy II diets?

[sallyrnrrt, ADN, RN]

1/2&1/2 with maalox q ONE HOUR, the little morphine and codiene tabs in the plastic wheel that was dumped into the barel of a syringe after plunger pulled out, put the plunger back in and then pull up a cc or so of saline for a "hypo of morphine etc...."

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

There's a similar thread going on in a list for legal nurses I'm on; few of us are fresh young things :) and so it's fun to read. A recent few posts mentioned locked leathers, Montgomery straps with rubber bands and safety pins, the various concoctions we pasted onto decubs (sugar and Maalox/Hydrogen peroxide/etc, followed by a heat lamp and/or oxygen piped in from the wall and held on with a paper cup and tape), and standing up when the physicians entered the nursing station.

[ToothFairy(5)]

Under NO circumstances does ANYONE say ANYTHING to the nurse assigned to pass meds.

Orderlies ONLY cared for male patients.

Private rooms were for the well-off.

There was a charge to be paid to have the TV turned on in the room.

Report was given by the charge nurses only; everybody else just gathered around and listened. At the end of the report, the charge nurse used her bandage scissors to cut up the report sheet and handed us our assignments.

We could count the number of male nurses (both of them), in the entire hospital.

Do not punch the time clock if you don't have your nursing cap.

Hibiclenz was the modern day hand sanitizer.

MRSA? What's MRSA?

Penicillin was the antibiotic of choice for practically everything.

IVs were started with stainless steel needles, no plastic to remain after retraction.

OMG, we still use hibiclenz from time to time.

I still wear my nursing whites but leave the cap off.

I recall the glass containers on the floor for chest tubes drainage. You had your drainage bottle, the water seal bottle and the suction control bottle.

[amoLucia]

1/2&1/2 with maalox q ONE HOUR, the little morphine and codiene tabs in the plastic wheel that was dumped into the barel of a syringe after plunger pulled out, put the plunger back in and then pull up a cc or so of saline for a "hypo of morphine etc...."

Oh my!!!! I forgot all about those little wheels that held just about all our narcotics! You had to break the little plastic window in declining numeric order to get your med.